Suddenly too Frosty
by stilljustme
Summary: in Memoriam Lee Thompson Young.
1. Chapter 1

_I just read about Lee Thompson Young's suicide and… I hope nobody feels offended by this story. I don't mean to make fun of such a horrible thing, I can't understand it – can't understand how your life can be such a burden to you that you decide to end it yourself. I am very sorry for him, and for his family, and for everyone who ever stood at the point of killing oneself… again, please don't be mad at me for writing about it. If you are, though, tell me, and I will delete it. For now I just couldn't not write it, because writing was always my way to cope with things. _

"He's late." Jane paced the bureau like a tiger in the cage, "he's late, Korsak!"  
"What you don't say." The older detective leaned at his desk calmly. "Give him a moment of humanity, Jane. Maybe he just woke up at the other end of the city, a stranger in his arms and thunder in his head. It's Monday morning."  
"Exactly!", Jane exclaimed, "it's Monday morning, Frost's never late, never, and especially not on Mondays!"

"Especially not on Mondays?" Maura peeked into the room, curious about her friend's bad mood twenty-seven minutes on duty. "What's wrong with Monday mornings?"  
"Everybody hates them" Frankie commented, walking past the doctor. Searchingly he looked around in the room. "Where is –"  
"He's not there yet!" Jane snapped, more annoyed than worried at the moment, "Frost is late, and he is never late, and Maura, he is never late especially not on Mondays, so whatever holds him up is something bad, don't you get it?"

Confused looks from the others were answer enough.

Jane sighed. "Alright. I give him five more minutes to call me back. And then I'm gonna kill him." Again she checked her cell. Nothing. Frost still had his switched off, and he didn't answer to his phone at home, either. Something wasn't right. Jane remembered the only other time her colleague hadn't come in time. He had been caught in a broken garage together with Tommy. She just hoped it really was only a girl from somewhere at the end of the world that stopped him this time.  
But why on earth should he switch off his phone? He was ambitious, yes, and would never admit a piece of human weakness to his superiors, but wasn't excusing yourself for coming late better than coming late unmentioned? What did he think? That they wouldn't notice him missing?

"I've had enough" the detective declared, "Korsak, call me if he gets here, I'm gonna check his home."  
"Jane…"  
"Do we have another case at the moment?" Jane didn't wait for an answer as she rushed out of the department. There was nothing else to do. Of course, there was always something to do, but nothing that couldn't wait for the moment. On her way to the car she took one second to look around. Everything was green. It was a wonderful morning, even though it was Monday. Boston at its best.

"Jane!" Maura had followed the detective. "Should I come with you?"  
"You? What… no!" Jane backed away in shock. "Why on earth should I take a forensic doctor with me?"

Maura swallowed. "I thought as a friend" she said coolly, "but if you can't see me different now that it…"  
"No, no, sorry, I…" Jane closed her eyes. She was getting paranoid. Maybe she needed holidays, she was doing this job too long without a break. Not everything was bad.  
"I'm sorry, Maura" she said, calmer now. "I didn't want to hurt you. But this… I want to check up on him alone, if it's okay, let's just make it no big deal, just kick him out of the sheets and drag him here. I'll be here soon, alright?"  
"Okay." Maura nodded, though still confused, and Jane opened the door.

"You are worried about him. Why?"  
Jane sighed. Without looking back she shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe it's stupid, god, I hope it's stupid. I need a break." She chuckled. "Did I just say that aloud?"  
"You did" Maura said thoughtfully, "and though from the medical side I totally understand and agree I think it gets me worried about you."  
"It gets you worried that I start to be rational?" Jane finally turned around and tried to smile – failing miserably.  
Maura returned the look seriously. "You're playing for time. Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure." Another try, and this time the corners of Jane's mouth did what they should. "It's enough to have one of us going crazy. See you!"  
She stepped in and started the engine so fast that Maura wouldn't get the chance to say something.

Truth be told, Jane was worried. And she wished Maura to be with her, or Korsak, or even Frankie. Most of all she wished Frost to call her back and say he was sorry but would be here any minute.  
But the minutes passed by, and still there was no news from her colleague, and after a too short drive there was nothing more to do than get out of the car and knock on the door to Barold Frost's apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you for all your comments. I am sorry for the one voice who told me not to keep on writing – there were others asking me to continue, and I myself know that I need this to be written to the end, though it will never really ease the pain or explain anything. Thank you all._

"Frost! Come on, it's me!" The door vibrated from Jane's fists hammering against it. She let anger take over her again, anger was good against the cold fear creeping up her spine. "If this is a joke, haha. Very funny. Now open that damn door or I will kick it in! Please, Frost." The last words were whispered. Jane closed her eyes. She had to go in now.  
"Police, coming in" she murmured, more automatically, and then with one too often used move kicked open the white door.

Everything seemed to be okay. It was silent in the apartment, and dark, the curtains in the living room closed.  
Carefully, Jane made her way through the small kitchen, trying not to look too examining at everything she saw. This was Frost's house, and she would try to destroy his private sphere as little as she could. One day she'd have him at the point that he would invite them over.  
But not today.

"Frost? It's me, Jane!" Again automatically, Jane's voice died down to a whisper as she continued to walk through the rooms.

Frost lay in his bed, eyes closed, head fallen onto his left arm, curled and cuddled together. He wasn't breathing.  
Jane stood in the door, hearing her own breath getting quicker and heavier and more desperate with every beat of her heart, and still Frost wasn't breathing! He was completely still, as if time had frozen around him.  
The detective started shaking as the scene before her filled her eyes, her brain.  
Frost on the bed. So quiet.  
The pool of blood next to his head and arm. The gun on the floor, lying right under the man's right hand hanging out of the bed.  
The blood, again and again, red and hot it shone through the dim room. It wanted to say something but Jane couldn't understand it, the silence was too loud.

She was paralyzed, and it didn't matter. This she knew. There was no need to hurry anymore. It was already over. It was over.

Frost was dead.

Jane's arms felt heavy suddenly, as if they were moving through water, not air. She couldn't come nearer. She couldn't back away. The buttons on her cell blurred but she didn't cry. When she had finally brought the phone up to her face, Maura had already answered.  
"Jane? Jane? What the… oh, thank you, detective. So you did intend to call me. What about Frost?"

The detective jerked at the name. "Frost" she whispered, softly and almost afraid, but what should she be afraid of? "Frost, he…" She started to shiver. "Maura, I need you here. Now. Please."

Whatever Maura had wanted to throw at her friend died away at the sound of Jane's voice. "What happened? Jane, are you okay?"

Okay? Her? It took a moment for Jane to understand the question. "Yes, I'm…" her head nodded frantically, but the word "good" didn't make it over her lips. "I need you here. And bring Korsak. And Frankie. Now!" Her voice broke in shivers and dry sobs, but the tears still wouldn't come.

Jane let the cell drop where she stood and leant against the doorframe, trying to breathe normally. Frost was dead. She forced herself to think it, the whole sentence, with every time she took a breath. Frost was dead. It hurt but it didn't make sense.  
Who would want to kill him? Who was strong and clever and angry and heartless enough to kill him? What kind of person could do this?

The answer was rushing through her blood, hot and frightening and so wrong that Jane felt her stomach turning. With half-closed eyes she stumbled out of the room and to a door at the other end, the bathroom door.  
She didn't throw up, she was a cop for that too long. Just like Frost.  
A small laughter broke her lips as she looked at her reflection. She still looked the same. Pale, yes, but the same. While Frost would never be the same. Frost would never be. Anything. Anymore.  
Someone had killed him.

Desperately Jane tried to get back her anger from before, anger was a shield against everything. She needed to find a reason, some kind of sense in this. She had to find whoever was responsible for Frost's – death – and kill him, destroy him, make him suffer just like he made her suffer. She wanted to break him.

"Jane? Oh my god. Detective Frost! Jane!"  
Maura stopped dead at the same spot Jane had stood before. The detective watched the doctor standing there, realizing how she must have looked. It was so real. It was her life, how could it feel so wrong?

"Jane." Korsak stayed between the two women, not close enough to see it, but he knew it. He knew it from the shrillness in Maura's voice. He knew it from the look in Jane's eyes.  
And he couldn't help but feel he should have known it before. He should have seen that something was wrong, he should have seen it, known it… he should have done something.  
But what did that mean now, "should have"? It was too late. The little work he had not wanted to do had torn a life away from earth.

"Jane." Maura turned around to face her friend, her voice small and soft now. Jane's eyes wandered from one to the other, confused and lost. "We need to find him, Maura. We need to find his killer."

"Killer?" Maura was so shocked she couldn't move.  
Korsak's eyes widened. "Killer?" He ran over to the bedroom, filled with new – hope? Anger? Energy to do his job? Could the why and who change what had happened?

It couldn't. Not for Frost anymore. But it could for him. And for Jane and the department and for Frost's mother if he…  
No. A single tear rolled out of Korsak's eye, followed by others. It was selfish to expect the circumstances of a crime to excuse him. It wouldn't have made a difference, truth be told, for Frost it wouldn't have made a difference if it was suicide or a murder. For him it was over.

What had he tried to do, make it easier for himself? Korsak sat down at the bed, unable to look at the corpse any longer. He didn't need Dr. Isles' opinion today. He knew what he was looking at. And nothing would ever change it.

"Jane." Maura's voice was still dangerously soft, gentle enough to suffocate from it. Carefully she led her friend back to the living room and made her sit down on the couch.

It felt wrong to sit there without being invited in. Jane shivered as her shoulders touched the leather. It was so cold here now.  
"Jane. Listen to me."  
She didn't want to listen anymore. But she knew Maura, she wouldn't stop before…  
"There was no killer and you know that." The doctor put an arm around Jane's shoulders. "Jane, you know that. As horrible as it is…" Despite the cold, often trained and spoken words Maura's shoulders started to shake slightly. "You have to face the fact that detective Frost committed su…"

"What?" Jane jumped up. "What the hell, Maura? Since when are you expert for snap judgment? You have no idea what you're talking about, leave that to the detectives! You're not supposed to think for us!"  
"Jane…" Maura went pale. "I… I know this is hard on you, but…"  
"Yes, damn right this is hard on me! My partner just got killed! He got killed!" Jane's voice crumbled again, and she grabbed for the blonde woman's hand. "Help me, Maura" she begged, "help me find that bastard and give him what he deserves. Help me bring Frost home, please, just help me!"

Maura's eyes were wide with sympathy and helplessness. She had to keep her own feelings at bay now, which wasn't as easy as she wished it would be. Detective Frost had not only been an excellent working colleague. Despite the problems people usually had with Maura – all of them, even Jane – Frost had always treated her with respect, and with all warmth she could tolerate. The fact that he had now chosen to leave them all behind hurt her.  
"I wish I could" she said earnestly, "Jane, I wish I could. But by all religious means we have to believe that he is home. And I know you don't want to hear it right now, but the one you want to blame right now has already paid his price. He killed himself! He did it."

"Shut up!" Jane dropped the hand Maura was holding onto, so fast and brutal that it got free. "Shut up! All of you! No, Korsak, don't you dare!" Her eyes were wild as she pointed towards the elder detective who was just coming out of the bedroom. He seemed twenty years older than in the morning.  
"Jane" he started gravely, but she wouldn't let him speak, "no! Don't do this, Korsak, you know him, we know him, damn, we knew him, that's not true! That's just – not – " Her face was distorted with pain. Before either Korsak or Maura could say anything she turned around and ran out of the apartment, almost tripping over the stairs.  
She needed to breathe, it wasn't that difficult. It still was Monday morning in Boston.  
And Frost was dead.

Jane sat down on the stairs before she could fall. She was tired, and the real work had not even begun. She had to inform Frost's mom. "I am very sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Frost, but your son was killed today." What a pathetic set phrase. How could they ever have used it?  
What did that say about them?

"Jane!"  
Obediently the woman looked up to the voice. Angela Rizzoli stepped out of a police car, followed by Frankie, pale and with red eyes. Korsak must have informed him somehow, or had it been Marura? Or somebody else? Or was it… no, he hadn't. He couldn't.

"Janey." Angela's eyes were filled with tears as she approached her daughter, opening her arms so Jane could fall into them.  
She backed away. "He's dead, mom" she whispered. Something like a smile crossed her face, she couldn't stop it. It was so good to see her mother here. It was so good to finally see someone crying for Frost, someone who knew him, someone who knew he would never, never, have done such a thing.  
"There was no letter" she heard herself say, and the spark of triumph made her voice ugly, "there was no letter of sorry, or of goodbye. Nothing."  
Angela nodded quickly. "I know, baby."  
"Nothing!" Jane's voice went shriller as she felt she couldn't convince her mother. How long could she keep herself convinced?  
"Nothing, nothing why it happened, nothing why… nothing why…" Finally she could feel tears build up in the back of her throat and eyes, and they choked her.

Angela swallowed. "Nothing to explain why he did it" she finished the sentence, and with a small cry Jane collapsed into her arms, unable to hold against it, tears flowing at last.  
"Why?" She cried into the embrace, to nobody in particular, to the whole world, "why did he do it?"  
Angela held her daughter closer, rocked her gently like she had done when Jane had been a little girl. The world had not got easier since then.  
"I don't know Jane" she whispered, "I don't know. I'm so sorry."

"They will bring him to the department." Maura sat down next to Jane on the stairs. Both women were very pale and had red eyes.  
"Jane, I…"  
"I'm sorry, Maura" Jane said tonelessly. "I really am. I just… I just don't understand it." She looked to her friend. "Why did he do it? Why? And why didn't we notice it?"

Maura shook her head as she looked back into the apartment. After holding her daughter till she had cried herself out Angela had turned to comfort her son and Korsak. The old man sat on the couch now, with the mother of his remaining detective holding his hand. Frankie kept watch at Frost's side.  
"I don't know, Jane" she said sadly, looking back to her friend. "I have no idea."

And then Maura started to cry, too, loud and chopped and for the first time in many years.  
Jane took her hand and squeezed it.  
"It doesn't make any sense" she said.  
Maura shook her head. "It did, Jane. It did for him."  
"But why?"


	3. Chapter 3

The funeral of detective Barold Frost was ten days later.  
They were all there, every single cop from the precinct and some who still knew him from the academy, neighbors, childhood friends – all come from wherever their way had led them, back to the one who's way had ended.  
Ended by his own hands.  
Jane stood in the back as the grave side service began, taking in the black little ocean in front of her. So many who didn't understand, so many who suffered. So many who had not been able to help her partner cope with whatever was bothering him – and now they were left to stay here without him. She could only hope that wherever he was now he had found his peace. If there was something behind it all, something after this life – she was tired of thinking about it. Tired already to live with the burden that her own partner, her friend, had chosen to kill himself – and she hadn't seen it coming. She hadn't helped him. She had left him alone.

And as she saw Korsak standing in the shadows of a tree next to her Jane knew that he was feeling the same thing. They listened to the priest talking about Frost's life, and the good he had done, how strong and brave and always ready to defend those who couldn't defend themselves he had been – it was a good speech. Father Anthony had baptized Frost, he had known him. Jane wondered what he was thinking now, seeing one of his sheep committing the greatest sin.

Her glance wandered on to Frost's mother and her wife, staying back a bit next to Cavanaugh. The lieutenant was shaken just like the rest of them. Somehow Jane found it consoling that her boss, too, had not seen it coming – and that he, too, had liked Frost. If anything was to be called good on this day, this was it: All people come here had done so because they had known Frost in one point of their life. None of them was forced to be here, Jane had heard Cavanaugh say that often enough – that he'd rather see no cop at all than one who behaved like he had been forced to come.

They had come because they needed to. They needed to say goodbye to a man that in some moment had been there for them.

How could it be that none of them had been there for him in the crucial moment?

"_It wasn't your fault."_ That was the first thing Frost's mom had said to Jane when she and Korsak had driven to the camp and told her the sad news. _"It was nobody's fault."_

Nobody's and all's. Tears rolled down Jane's eyes as she watched the people in front of her, helpless just as she was to make it good again.  
Her mother had her arms around Frankie and Maura, they were standing right behind Cavanaugh, offering what little comfort they could – that they were all here, all standing behind Mrs. Frost. They would never forget about the young detective, about the man he had been.

Jane was glad her mother had let her stay behind, she couldn't be in the middle of them right now, she couldn't.

"Jane…" Korsak moved towards her, unsecure. Reluctantly Jane turned her head, away from what she didn't want to see but would not get out of her mind.  
"Any suggestion now?" She didn't have to explain more.

Korsak closed his eyes and shook his head. "We won't find out anymore."

Jane nodded, new tears blooming in her eyes. She looked towards the tomb again."I'm gonna miss him" she said, like a promise, but whom did she want to impress? Missing someone was not something to boast with. This was not a game she used to play with Cavanaugh, or even Joe Grant. It was truth, and it would last.

"I already do" Korsak admitted, looking at the service again, too.  
Maura turned around, and through the distance Jane could see she was crying, too. Still her friend's smile was honest, and as she returned it Jane knew that it wasn't only meant to console her. It was a smile for Frost, for all he had been in his life. Because his life had been strong and good, just like father Anthony had said.

Jane swallowed. "What now?"  
Korsak sighed. "I was thinking about leaving."  
"The job?"

The elder detective closed his eyes, letting a tear drop fall onto his cheek slowly. "I couldn't protect him, Jane. I couldn't save him. How am I supposed to protect the people of this city if I can't even save my partner?"

That was it. The other question whirling around in Jane's head ever since the moment she had accepted the truth. Frost had killed himself.

"I don't know" she admitted, the sad conclusion to her sleepless nights. "But your leaving wouldn't change a thing. It would only…" She stopped. Leave her alone? How could she say that?  
Korsak seemed to read her mind. "Jane, you're gonna be okay! You're a good detective, you've been from day one. Stay." It was a plea to earth and heaven and she knew exactly what he meant.

"I will stay." This was another conclusion Jane had come to. She would stay on the force, she would do her best to keep the work going, to be there for the people, to help. She couldn't give up. "We're all here, Korsak. Maura, Frankie, even Cavanaugh… they're all here."  
"I see them." Korsak stepped closer to the other mourners. "I see them all. Why couldn't he?"  
Jane shook her head.

"Maybe you're right." The man had grown old in those days. "It's too late to run away."  
"Not too late" Jane whispered as the tomb was brought down, "too early. Way too early to say goodbye." She buried her face in her hands as the coffin was out of sight, and cried again, and at the other end of the queue Mrs. Frost finally started to cry, too.  
As Angela wrapped her arms around Maura Korsak hugged Jane, allowing both of them to cry.

"You're right" he murmured, "you're right, Jane. We have to go on."  
"But how?" She was exhausted. Looking for a way to go on was so much harder than she had expected.

Korsak straightened up. For the first time on this day he looked at Cavanaugh, two old men who had seen and lived through too much already. "Because we're all here" he repeated Jane's words, "we're all here and we still have the choice to live." His eyes burnt with the same energy that had made Jane and Frost made trust this man from day one.

Jane forced herself to nod, to silently say yes to life. She couldn't give up. She would miss Frost, and she would never forget him, and she would never stop asking herself what she had done wrong, what had happened to make him choose death.

All she could do was hoping she could ask him one day.

Korsak let go of her. "Are you with me, detective?"  
Jane took a deep breath. "Okay."

_That was it. Thank you for all your comments, I am glad that I could do this and that it was a small comfort to some of you. Still it is a story and what happened is reality… well, there's nothing more to say. For many people, the world will never be the same again. RIP Lee Thompson Young_


End file.
